Designing of package tour is the main task of any tour manager, he is the only person who look upon the different factors of designing a package tour. A tour manager need to be initiative, imaginative and innovative enough to perform his task. His duties range from finding new exotic and unexplored destination, planning, organizing and promoting tours. A package tour mainly depends upon the following factors:
Time of the travel
Destination
Type of accommodation
Tourist budget
Purpose of travel
Following are the Stages in designing a package tour
1.Destination research
The idea to develop a new packages passes though many stages which can be positive or negative. Developing of the new destination is the task of the tour planner or the manger but sometime it may occur in the mind of tour manager due to reviews or suggestions of the old client. When a tour planner notices that large number of client are interested in taking up a trip to a particular destination, the tour manager formulate a new package tour for that particular destination.
State Tourism Development and department of tourism play a vital role in development of new package tours. Public sector tourism organisation conduct indepth destination research in various ways. State tourism department of each state work with local hotels, air carriers and other organisation offer free familiarization trip for tour planners and travel writer to identify the several services offered at particular destination to help travel agencies in developing and prompting a package tour.
2.Market research
When a product is newly developed marketers do a market research to test the marketing of the product since a tourism product is intangible in nature but its a tourism product for tour operators and travel agencies. So before formulating a package a market research need to be done in a systematic manner.
A well planned market research will be help the travel agency or tour operator answer for the following questions:
- What is the size of the tourism market?
- Who are the existing customers?
- Where do they live?
- What is their budget?
- What is the strategies used by their competitors?
When all these question found an answer a marketing strategy is formed. which help in smooth functioning of the agency.
3.Itinerary development
An itinerary is just like a blue print basically designed to tell the necessary information about a particular tour package to its clients such as duration of the trip, timing of departure and arrival at each tourist destination, destination covered in the particular trip, accommodation, sightseeing and other travel service and tour cost etc. Preparing an itinerary is a very essential task of a travel planner. It provide the basic idea about the trip to its clients.
4.Appoint Handling Agencies
Handling agencies are those who takes care of the client during the tour they are also known as ground operators. Such as agencies which provide accommodation facility, transfer of the tourist from one place to another, sightseeing etc. It is very necessary to appoint handling agencies to ensure an excellent travel services to the tourist as well as for the profitability and smooth functioning of the agency. In the travel business ground operators play a vital role. They can make or spoil the whole trip.
Thus, the tour operators should carefully choose the handling agencies based of their quality of services provision and experiences of serving the tourist, area of operation, reputation in the market, professional staffs. All these factor matters a lot while choosing a proper handling agency for the tourist.
5.Negotiation with the vendors
When decision about the destination of the tour, concerning tour, duration of the tour, number of the client to be carried in the trip and handling agencies are done the next stage/ step is to negotiate with the vendors. Here negotiation means discussion between the travel agencies and other vendors for the terms, conditions and prices of the component of the tour. When both the parties agree upon certain terms, conditions and principals a contract is formed between them.
A travel agency need to negotiate with the following vendors:
- Airlines
- Accommodation organisations
- Transport operators
- Ground operators
- Car rental companies
- Other service providers
6.Pricing a Package Tour
When a travel planner finishes its task of negotiating with various vendors about the services and their cost and a contract is formed between both of them the next job is pricing of the package tour. The cost of a particular package include various cost such as cost of air ticket, hotel room, meals, transfer charges, entertainment charges, administration charges and other travel services. This is the big factor in success of any travel company. The cost of the package tour is often lower than the cost of each component when purchased separately. However cost of any package mainly depend upon the season of the tour, cost, competition and demand.
Selection of the pricing policy for tour package is directly related to the performance and the demand of the particular travel agencies. Setting the prices of the tour is vital as well as very critical task for the company.
7.Designing of the Tour Brochure
When a client purchase any tour package they may have less or even have no knowledge about the trip. A client cannot even inspect about the tour package because of its intangible nature which can be a risk for the travel agencies sometimes so to minimize the risk it tour brochure is developed. The tour brochure is a strong instrument of the travel agency which consist some information about the tour as well as the services offered during the tour. Preparation of the tour brochure need a good knowledge and skills about the tour component. A tour manager should take much care while preparing a tour brochure.
A tour brochure must contain the following information:
- Name of the company
- Duration of the trip
- Modes of transportation
- Details of the tourist destination
- Tourist itinerary
- Accommodation details
- Terms and condition
- Travel document required
- Prices details
- Other services details
8.Developing reservation system
When a travel agency done the job of preparing the tour brochure its next job is to implement the reservation system to put their package into a operation this depends upon the company. Some company feels easy to operate manually where some company fell comfortable working with the computers on the distribution method.
9.Marketing the tour package
When a tour package is ready to be sold in the market the next job of the travel agency management is to take decision regarding the promotion and marketing of the particular tour package. As a product need to be marketed and promoted after its development this concept applies to tour package also. The main objective of promotion and marketing a tour package to create awareness among the client about the package in order to attract them.
However the business of package tour consist the risk from intangibility, perishability and competition, the travel agencies should carefully design its promotion mix so it is widely known and be competitive in terms of quality and cost.
10.Actual operation of the tour
After promoting and marketing of the package tour the final step in the process tour tour designing is handling of actual tour operations. Operations of tours generally include administrative work, tourist handling, maintaining reservations, advising to ground operators, arrangements of travel documents, tour escorting, analyzing the feedback of the tourist etc. This is the most difficult task of the travel agency where the agency come in the connection of their client, their need to be good communication skills in order to clear the queries of the clients.
A tour company need to manage this step very carefully in order to satisfy the tourist. To success in tour packaging business a travel company must adopt professional approach. It should provide adequate and timely information to the tourist to make their selves different in all approaches.
0 comments:
Post a Comment